Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
I was enjoying my morning coffee while cruising the new eBay listings when I came across an old worldwide album. Very old and heavily remaindered, but still with several thousand stamps.
The stamps that were left were a real mishmash. Some were very grubby (toned, dull corners, heavy cancels) but others were quite nice. I'm thinking of bidding based on the nice stamps I could see.
All of this got me thinking, for those of you who buy old collections to merge into your personal collection (especially the WW collectors like Jim, Chris, Bob and Keijo), what's your standard for condition? If you have a space that could be filled, what's in and what's out?
Personally, I've stopped adding space fillers (missing corners, rusted, smudged cancels) to my collection. I kept being disappointed whenever I reviewed my albums.
Another way of looking at this: when you buy a collection, what proportion of stamps are typically acceptable to you? I've been looking to buy a WW Collection for several months now but most that I see are 60% damaged or ugly or higher. Nothing like what jim shows on his Big Blue blog or Michael on the dead countries blog.
On the other hand, I've heard the most cost effective way to add to a worldwide collection is buying old collections, rather then individual sets. Maybe I'm just not finding the good ones yet.
Mark
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My standards for buying a collection are the same as for buying a single stamp or a set. I don't buy crap.
Yes, buying collections is cost effective to add hundred/thousands of stamps to a collection. However, it is not cost effective to buy a collection of pieces of paper that only have one thing left to do with them, donate to the Holocaust Project.
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It is also great if you can find a dealer who works on "quick turnaround". By that I mean the dealer buys collections, and wants to quickly resell the collection either intact, or in sections. You can also ask a dealer if they have anything locked away in the back that they want to move out. Might get a real good deal to help make some room in the dealer's closet. Plus you get to personally inspect before you buy.
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You hit the nail on the head when you said you would base your bid only on the nice stamps you could see. Whenever I buy any collection (larger or smaller) on ebay I do not assume anything- bid only on what I can assuredly see and verify. Then I try to quantify what it is worth to me- additions to my collection, what I can trade with trading partners or sell. I've found some great bargains but it took a learning curve early on to get there. Good Luck Mark!
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You are 100% correct about the learning curve. After buying a few large box lots of junk, I quickly tired of that. That was early on as well. Now I check things out to make sure of what I am getting. There are certain types of albums that I will always pass over as my experiences are that the stamps in there are mostly for the recycle bin. The same holds true of box lots that are a complete jumble of envelopes, glassines and such of mega duplication of the same stuff that are found in a large percentage of this type of lot that is better known as "floor sweepings".
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I think it comes down to value. I would put a damaged $2.60 Zeppelin in my collection, but when I come across torn common stamps I toss them. I figure I am doing the hobby a favor. I like to buy cover lots and I've cut the undamaged stamps off beat up covers. I do come across used stamps that have part of "First Day of Issue" on them so I figure I'm not alone.
I am also very cautious when viewing collections and lots on eBay. I go through the 100 photos from the big dealers who give no description but warn you to bid only on what you see in the pictures. I see a lot of these albums full of used stamps with the high values of sets plucked out already. I also see albums with mint stamps where I cannot detect a clear mount, so I have to assume the entire mess is hinged.
I am more inclined to bid on cover lots than stamps, and for the most part the same big dealers never give a cover count, and it's difficult to determine how many covers are there, so I usually bid very low and seldom win the lot. This past summer the spirit company had a lot of older New Jersey postcards and best I could determine there were about 100 cards. I bid $25 and was surprised when I won. And even more surprised when I got the lot. It turned out that there were almost 200 mostly very nice cards, all in sleeves. You could tell this was from a dealers stock because most of the cards were priced and some of them were marked up to $10 each. A terrific bargain! So we win sometimes.
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Thanks for all the great comments.
Based on all this, I think what I really need to do is form a relationship with a dealer with whom I can buy collections / job lots to break down on my own.
Sadly, I don't have a local dealer but I do have a good relationship with a dealer in Edmonton who comes to our local show once a year. Perhaps I can ask if he can bring something to town when he comes in February.
Mark
PS:
I seem to spend way more time on Ebay than I should, browsing. The auction that prompted my post was for an old, hardbound Scott International that had around 2000 stamps in it (according to the description) but according to the pictures had 25,000 hinge remnants in it. And what was left wasn't worth keeping.
All that screamed "pass" but it got me thinking about how I've never seen anything all that good in most 'collection' lots anyway. All of which prompted my post.
I admire the 1840 - 1940 or 1960 collectors, and even yearn to join them one day, but can't imagine the percentage of trash they go through based on the collections I've seen for sale.
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I accept any condition stamp for an empty space. My catalog control system allows me to buy an upgrade if it comes available. But realistically my budget will never allow me to get to most of these items.
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I take rjans approach. However I also collect postmarks, so a heavy identifiable postmark is not a negative for me. While I have never bought a collection in an album ( the cost of the postage of the album is a killer ), I have bought kiloware lots which have obviously had album remainders within them. Quite a lot of "grotty" stamps will actually look reasonable after soaking of all the extraneous bits of paper and hinge remnants and a good bath if not fugitive. However I draw the line at tears, permanent creases and mint stamps! Commoner ( less value)older stamps are virtually impossible or prohibitively expensive to obtain other than as remainders. I will not pay 50 pence plus £1.00 postage for a stamp catalogued at 15p however good it's condition !
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@Madbaker... Since you kindly mentioned my name as one of your 'idols', here's my few cents worth.
As you likely know, anything with faults ends up on the bin for me. Just last night binned a one shillling yellow PNG Lakatoi that had solid appearance, but a couple of creases and some rust on the back. Makes my heart cry, but I'd cry even more if damaged item like that was part of my collection Fortunately rest of the 'old Papua' lot that I'm dismantling seems more or less OK
.
Re, buying old collections.... If you notice more than a few random damaged pieces, then runaway. It is a sign that whoever put up the collection/lot was not 'quality aware' and there is all sorts of troubles lurking in the shadows. Personally I try to purchase lots that have no apparent faults, but even so I usually end up binning 10-15% of stamps (creases, thins etc. damages that don't show on top). If I buy lots with notable damages, the percentage of bin material goes easily up to 40-60%.
Where to buy/get good lots... There are two things you've got to learn. First, each lot will be different and their quality depends entirely on the person who build it. And second, dealers/sellers and auctioneers are nothing but gateways who just pass on the stuff they land upon. So all you can do is learn to use your senses. There is no single channel that provides you the 'good stuff'... Making connections with dealers may or may not work. They may simply see you as the 'difficult one' that is not worth serving (especially if you don't use major $$$ consistently).... One thing worth buying is old approvals. The stamps in these are usually 'pre-checked' and quality is usually higher than in collections.
-k-
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A few years ago I bought a large cover lot that it was apparent that some dealer had a box under his desk in which he tossed any cover that wasn't salable! Anything in that lot that was old or desirable was either damaged or had an unreadable postmark. Some of the lot was a collection of postcards that a collector sent out to post offices for cancels. These obviously were the bad ones with smeared or unreadable cancels. I'm amazed that people passed on and kept some of these covers for 50-100 years! They should have been trashed when they were received! And that I did! It pained me to cut the stamps off covers that had managed to survive that long, but it was apparent that nobody would ever put them in their collections and I don't have the gall to put them in a lot to pass on to the next sucker!
And remember, old approval books are the stamps nobody purchased!
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WW collections for sale in Big Blues, Minkus etc..
I look at the U.S.- If the stamps are ratty- the rest of the collection has usually been collected without regards to condition also. If the U.S. collection looks good- fine clear postmarks etc, then the album usually was built with condition in mind.
Country collections or collections in a specialty binder for sale....
Usually a good sign of better material and stamps collected with condition in mind.
Condition....
Problem: the Classical era has a higher proportion of stamps with faults. Even some of the great rarities have faults. 
I'm not as ruthless as Keijo, I will accept a stamp with minor faults. 
BUT- I make a notation in the catalogue that the stamp needs upgrading.
Whenever I am adding a feeder collection into the main collection, upgrading of stamps that I already have is always occurring. 
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I do buy quite a few collections and accumulations, and my general rule of thumb is to avoid anything that looks like the original collector didn't care about quality.
In a more general sense, anything up to about $50 CV has to be fault free... and no nasty postmarks (I collect used) and centered at least F; no toning, no missing perfs, no thins, no exceptions. $50-$500 I'll accept some tiny "issue"... not the most interesting cancel, sound but dodgy centering, a minute hinge thin, ONE nibbed perf. No more than that. On the really valuable stuff I'll allow a little more, and generally go more by "on-face appearance."
For my specialized collections (classic Denmark and early Swedish town cancels) I take no flawed, regardless of value/scarcity.
Cheers,
Peter
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Thanks for all the responses. Very good advice there.
The biggest tip for me is the advice on assessing lots - if what's in the picture looks grubby, expect the rest to look the same or worse! Well that and the comment on old approval books.
I don't want to kill the thread if more collectors want to chime in. Just acknowledging the great input so far.
Mark
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Hello!
I was enjoying my morning coffee while cruising the new eBay listings when I came across an old worldwide album. Very old and heavily remaindered, but still with several thousand stamps.
The stamps that were left were a real mishmash. Some were very grubby (toned, dull corners, heavy cancels) but others were quite nice. I'm thinking of bidding based on the nice stamps I could see.
All of this got me thinking, for those of you who buy old collections to merge into your personal collection (especially the WW collectors like Jim, Chris, Bob and Keijo), what's your standard for condition? If you have a space that could be filled, what's in and what's out?
Personally, I've stopped adding space fillers (missing corners, rusted, smudged cancels) to my collection. I kept being disappointed whenever I reviewed my albums.
Another way of looking at this: when you buy a collection, what proportion of stamps are typically acceptable to you? I've been looking to buy a WW Collection for several months now but most that I see are 60% damaged or ugly or higher. Nothing like what jim shows on his Big Blue blog or Michael on the dead countries blog.
On the other hand, I've heard the most cost effective way to add to a worldwide collection is buying old collections, rather then individual sets. Maybe I'm just not finding the good ones yet.
Mark
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11:28:22am
re: What are your condition standards when breaking down old collections?
My standards for buying a collection are the same as for buying a single stamp or a set. I don't buy crap.
Yes, buying collections is cost effective to add hundred/thousands of stamps to a collection. However, it is not cost effective to buy a collection of pieces of paper that only have one thing left to do with them, donate to the Holocaust Project.
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11:42:43am
re: What are your condition standards when breaking down old collections?
It is also great if you can find a dealer who works on "quick turnaround". By that I mean the dealer buys collections, and wants to quickly resell the collection either intact, or in sections. You can also ask a dealer if they have anything locked away in the back that they want to move out. Might get a real good deal to help make some room in the dealer's closet. Plus you get to personally inspect before you buy.
Login to Like
this post
re: What are your condition standards when breaking down old collections?
You hit the nail on the head when you said you would base your bid only on the nice stamps you could see. Whenever I buy any collection (larger or smaller) on ebay I do not assume anything- bid only on what I can assuredly see and verify. Then I try to quantify what it is worth to me- additions to my collection, what I can trade with trading partners or sell. I've found some great bargains but it took a learning curve early on to get there. Good Luck Mark!
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06:56:33pm
re: What are your condition standards when breaking down old collections?
You are 100% correct about the learning curve. After buying a few large box lots of junk, I quickly tired of that. That was early on as well. Now I check things out to make sure of what I am getting. There are certain types of albums that I will always pass over as my experiences are that the stamps in there are mostly for the recycle bin. The same holds true of box lots that are a complete jumble of envelopes, glassines and such of mega duplication of the same stuff that are found in a large percentage of this type of lot that is better known as "floor sweepings".
Login to Like
this post
re: What are your condition standards when breaking down old collections?
I think it comes down to value. I would put a damaged $2.60 Zeppelin in my collection, but when I come across torn common stamps I toss them. I figure I am doing the hobby a favor. I like to buy cover lots and I've cut the undamaged stamps off beat up covers. I do come across used stamps that have part of "First Day of Issue" on them so I figure I'm not alone.
I am also very cautious when viewing collections and lots on eBay. I go through the 100 photos from the big dealers who give no description but warn you to bid only on what you see in the pictures. I see a lot of these albums full of used stamps with the high values of sets plucked out already. I also see albums with mint stamps where I cannot detect a clear mount, so I have to assume the entire mess is hinged.
I am more inclined to bid on cover lots than stamps, and for the most part the same big dealers never give a cover count, and it's difficult to determine how many covers are there, so I usually bid very low and seldom win the lot. This past summer the spirit company had a lot of older New Jersey postcards and best I could determine there were about 100 cards. I bid $25 and was surprised when I won. And even more surprised when I got the lot. It turned out that there were almost 200 mostly very nice cards, all in sleeves. You could tell this was from a dealers stock because most of the cards were priced and some of them were marked up to $10 each. A terrific bargain! So we win sometimes.
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re: What are your condition standards when breaking down old collections?
Thanks for all the great comments.
Based on all this, I think what I really need to do is form a relationship with a dealer with whom I can buy collections / job lots to break down on my own.
Sadly, I don't have a local dealer but I do have a good relationship with a dealer in Edmonton who comes to our local show once a year. Perhaps I can ask if he can bring something to town when he comes in February.
Mark
PS:
I seem to spend way more time on Ebay than I should, browsing. The auction that prompted my post was for an old, hardbound Scott International that had around 2000 stamps in it (according to the description) but according to the pictures had 25,000 hinge remnants in it. And what was left wasn't worth keeping.
All that screamed "pass" but it got me thinking about how I've never seen anything all that good in most 'collection' lots anyway. All of which prompted my post.
I admire the 1840 - 1940 or 1960 collectors, and even yearn to join them one day, but can't imagine the percentage of trash they go through based on the collections I've seen for sale.
Login to Like
this post
re: What are your condition standards when breaking down old collections?
I accept any condition stamp for an empty space. My catalog control system allows me to buy an upgrade if it comes available. But realistically my budget will never allow me to get to most of these items.
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10:46:41am
re: What are your condition standards when breaking down old collections?
I take rjans approach. However I also collect postmarks, so a heavy identifiable postmark is not a negative for me. While I have never bought a collection in an album ( the cost of the postage of the album is a killer ), I have bought kiloware lots which have obviously had album remainders within them. Quite a lot of "grotty" stamps will actually look reasonable after soaking of all the extraneous bits of paper and hinge remnants and a good bath if not fugitive. However I draw the line at tears, permanent creases and mint stamps! Commoner ( less value)older stamps are virtually impossible or prohibitively expensive to obtain other than as remainders. I will not pay 50 pence plus £1.00 postage for a stamp catalogued at 15p however good it's condition !
Login to Like
this post
re: What are your condition standards when breaking down old collections?
@Madbaker... Since you kindly mentioned my name as one of your 'idols', here's my few cents worth.
As you likely know, anything with faults ends up on the bin for me. Just last night binned a one shillling yellow PNG Lakatoi that had solid appearance, but a couple of creases and some rust on the back. Makes my heart cry, but I'd cry even more if damaged item like that was part of my collection Fortunately rest of the 'old Papua' lot that I'm dismantling seems more or less OK.
Re, buying old collections.... If you notice more than a few random damaged pieces, then runaway. It is a sign that whoever put up the collection/lot was not 'quality aware' and there is all sorts of troubles lurking in the shadows. Personally I try to purchase lots that have no apparent faults, but even so I usually end up binning 10-15% of stamps (creases, thins etc. damages that don't show on top). If I buy lots with notable damages, the percentage of bin material goes easily up to 40-60%.
Where to buy/get good lots... There are two things you've got to learn. First, each lot will be different and their quality depends entirely on the person who build it. And second, dealers/sellers and auctioneers are nothing but gateways who just pass on the stuff they land upon. So all you can do is learn to use your senses. There is no single channel that provides you the 'good stuff'... Making connections with dealers may or may not work. They may simply see you as the 'difficult one' that is not worth serving (especially if you don't use major $$$ consistently).... One thing worth buying is old approvals. The stamps in these are usually 'pre-checked' and quality is usually higher than in collections.
-k-
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re: What are your condition standards when breaking down old collections?
A few years ago I bought a large cover lot that it was apparent that some dealer had a box under his desk in which he tossed any cover that wasn't salable! Anything in that lot that was old or desirable was either damaged or had an unreadable postmark. Some of the lot was a collection of postcards that a collector sent out to post offices for cancels. These obviously were the bad ones with smeared or unreadable cancels. I'm amazed that people passed on and kept some of these covers for 50-100 years! They should have been trashed when they were received! And that I did! It pained me to cut the stamps off covers that had managed to survive that long, but it was apparent that nobody would ever put them in their collections and I don't have the gall to put them in a lot to pass on to the next sucker!
And remember, old approval books are the stamps nobody purchased!
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this post
re: What are your condition standards when breaking down old collections?
WW collections for sale in Big Blues, Minkus etc..
I look at the U.S.- If the stamps are ratty- the rest of the collection has usually been collected without regards to condition also. If the U.S. collection looks good- fine clear postmarks etc, then the album usually was built with condition in mind.
Country collections or collections in a specialty binder for sale....
Usually a good sign of better material and stamps collected with condition in mind.
Condition....
Problem: the Classical era has a higher proportion of stamps with faults. Even some of the great rarities have faults.
I'm not as ruthless as Keijo, I will accept a stamp with minor faults.
BUT- I make a notation in the catalogue that the stamp needs upgrading.
Whenever I am adding a feeder collection into the main collection, upgrading of stamps that I already have is always occurring.
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re: What are your condition standards when breaking down old collections?
I do buy quite a few collections and accumulations, and my general rule of thumb is to avoid anything that looks like the original collector didn't care about quality.
In a more general sense, anything up to about $50 CV has to be fault free... and no nasty postmarks (I collect used) and centered at least F; no toning, no missing perfs, no thins, no exceptions. $50-$500 I'll accept some tiny "issue"... not the most interesting cancel, sound but dodgy centering, a minute hinge thin, ONE nibbed perf. No more than that. On the really valuable stuff I'll allow a little more, and generally go more by "on-face appearance."
For my specialized collections (classic Denmark and early Swedish town cancels) I take no flawed, regardless of value/scarcity.
Cheers,
Peter
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this post
re: What are your condition standards when breaking down old collections?
Thanks for all the responses. Very good advice there.
The biggest tip for me is the advice on assessing lots - if what's in the picture looks grubby, expect the rest to look the same or worse! Well that and the comment on old approval books.
I don't want to kill the thread if more collectors want to chime in. Just acknowledging the great input so far.
Mark
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this post